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Scott Pruitt & U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

The Nominee:

Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma Attorney General, has been confirmed as the next EPA Administrator. A polluter lobbyist is not qualified to keep our air and water clean. Here’s what you should know about Pruitt and the agency he will head:

Gage Skidmore / CC BY-SA 2.0

Update: February 17, 2017, 10:15AM PT

Senate confirms Scott Pruitt as the next administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Along a mostly party-line vote (52–46), Donald Trump’s pick to lead our nation’s top enforcer of environmental laws will take office despite his open hostility to bedrock air and water protections like the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, his refusal to turn over state documents and answer straightforward questions during his hearing process, and his many conflicts of interest resulting from the 14 times he has sued EPA to fight public health protections.

“This is a sad day for our country, especially for those living in polluted neighborhoods who count on the Environmental Protection Agency for help cleaning up their air, water and land. Scott Pruitt is unfit to lead the EPA,” said Earthjustice President Trip Van Noppen.

“Earthjustice’s mission remains the same: to protect the environment and health of all people. We have the law, the facts, the science and public opinion on our side. We will fight in every court across the country if Administrator Pruitt tries to take a sledgehammer to the agency charged with the protection of our air and water.”

What is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and what does it do?

It is the federal agency responsible for writing and enforcing regulations to protect public health and the environment. The EPA's publicly stated mission is “to ensure that all Americans are protected from significant risks to human health and the environment where they live, learn and work.”

The EPA handles ground, water and air pollution, as well as pollution containment and prevention. Most hazardous waste disposal also falls under EPA jurisdiction, including oil and chemical spills. One major EPA task is to create and enforce national standards that states and tribes often use as guidance to enforce through their own rules. However, the EPA does not handle all environmental concerns, as some issues are primarily concerns of other federal, tribal, state, or local agencies.

This is how the EPA affects your life:

The more stringent the standards are, the cleaner the air we breathe. To manage air pollution levels, the EPA is tasked with ensuring that states have plans in place to maintain or attain appropriate air quality. In 2015, the EPA unveiled the Clean Power Plan, a flexible set of rules that call for reductions in carbon emissions from the electricity sector by 32 percent over 2005 levels in the next 15 years. The plan, which improves air quality and cuts down the emissions that cause global warming and ocean acidification, is on hold pending judicial review. The incoming Trump administration, as well as most Republicans in Congress, oppose the Clean Power Plan and want to dismantle it despite the benefits to public health and to mitigating the impacts of climate change.

2. Under the Clean Water Act, the EPA regulates discharges of pollutants into bodies of water and sets quality standards for surface waters.

The EPA makes sure industries or other entities release pollution into navigable waters only if a permit has been obtained. As with air quality, the more stringent the water standard, the cleaner the water the country has. The agency also ensures drinking water is safe, and restores and maintains oceans, watersheds, and their aquatic ecosystems. In 2015, the agency issued the Clean Water Rule, extending the federal government’s jurisdiction to protect streams, including seasonal ones that flow into navigable rivers, and also to wetlands located near these streams or rivers. The Trump administration said it will roll back this rule.

3. The EPA is an investigative and research body that releases information on emissions, industry pollution, or chemicals to warn the public about risks.

In doing so, they also update previously issued information with the latest scientific research to make sure rules reflect current knowledge about environmental threats. For example, the EPA is now conducting a review on whether hydraulic fracturing, a method of extracting gas or oil by thrusting sand and chemicals into shale rock, is a risk to groundwater resources across the country. The EPA also conducts and supervises investigation and clean-up actions at sites where oil or other toxic chemicals have been released or could be released.

What does the EPA Administrator do?

The Administrator heads the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Although the EPA is not a Cabinet-level agency, the EPA Administrator traditionally sits alongside the 15 Secretaries in the President's Cabinet. The EPA Administrator position has no fixed term length.

How is Earthjustice’s work impacted by the EPA?

Earthjustice needs robust environmental rules to hold violators accountable in court and ensure public health and the environment are protected. Earthjustice works with the EPA and challenges the EPA to make sure that rules safeguarding our air, water, and environment are revised when needed, or kept strong when challenged by industry. New sources of pollution are constantly emerging and given the reality that climate change is worsening at an alarming rate, a bold EPA led by an environmentally responsible administrator is essential to keeping our air clean, our water clear, and our environment safe.

Who is Scott Pruitt?

Pruitt has been the attorney general of Oklahoma since 2010. He served in the state senate from 1998 to 2006. Prior to joining the state senate, he was a lawyer in private practice. He unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for Oklahoma Lieutenant Governor in 2006.

Contributions in the range of $500,000 to secure Pruitt’s confirmation are being solicited by a new group known as Protecting America Now, whose status allows it to keep individual and corporate donors anonymous. Industry stands to reap massive profits should Pruitt head the very agency that oversees their activities. This new group joins several fossil fuel-funded pro-Pruitt PACs. “During his tenure as Attorney General of Oklahoma, Mr. Pruitt has blurred the distinction between official and political actions, often at the behest of corporations he will regulate if confirmed to lead EPA,” said Senate Democrats in a Jan. 12 letter to the Office of Government Ethics. “Public reporting based on documents produced by Freedom of Information Act requests illustrate how Mr. Pruitt and members of his staff have worked closely with fossil fuel lobbyists to craft his office's official positions.”

What is Scott Pruitt's record on environmental protection?

Scott Pruitt is a climate-change denier with a record of opposing rules that cut emissions from polluters. He is concerned with limiting the regulatory authority of the federal government, which he considers “intrusive.”

The state of Oklahoma, under Pruitt’s leadership, joined the multistate legal battle challenging the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, which imposes limits on carbon emissions, the main driver of climate change. Pruitt has referred to the rule as “unlawful and overreaching” and complained that the Clean Power Plan would close coal-fired plants. He believes the EPA has overstepped its authority and interferes with the rights of states to devise their own energy policies.

In 2010, Pruitt challenged the Obama administration’s plans to reduce haze in southwestern Oklahoma by requiring new pollution control equipment. (Haze, largely the result of burning fossil fuels, is a mix of particulates and toxic gases, and especially dangerous for vulnerable groups, such as children, senior citizens and people with breathing problems like asthma.)

In 2014, Pruitt criticized the EPA for attempting to link fracking with groundwater contamination.

This year, Pruitt joined other attorney generals in battling the Security and Exchange Commission’s efforts to beef up climate change disclosure requirements. Pruitt also defended Exxon Mobil Corp. against probes from the attorneys general of Massachusetts and New York into the oil company's track record on climate change. He has opposed the listing of endangered species by federal agencies as interfering with oil and gas development.

What is Earthjustice’s position on Pruitt’s nomination?

“Every American should be appalled that President-elect Trump just picked someone who has made a career of being a vocal defender for polluters to head our Environmental Protection Agency. We all rely on the Environmental Protection Agency to enforce our clean air and clean water laws to keep us safe from toxic pollution. The leader of this agency should respect the importance of our bedrock environmental laws, be guided by science to make informed decisions and, above all, place the health of our families and communities above corporate profits.

“Scott Pruitt possesses none of these values. He has long opposed responsible rules for cutting toxic pollution, including the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, and he’s been in lockstep with the oil industry for years. He’s been so cozy with polluter lobbyists that he let them draft comments about federal pollution limits, changed a few words, then copied them onto his official Oklahoma Attorney General stationary and submitted it as the comments of the people of Oklahoma. He has fought Environmental Protection Agency pollution limits on toxic substances like soot and mercury that put us all at risk for increased cancer, childhood asthma and other health problems. He falsely claims that fracking doesn’t contaminate drinking water supplies.

“The media uncovered that he’s been part of a secretive, coordinated national corporate campaign to undo the federal pollution protections that are supposed to keep our air and water clean. In exchange, the oil industry has reciprocated with campaign contributions. Polluters would clearly be the ones who benefit from Pruitt being the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator. Regular Americans would be the losers.

“Earthjustice strongly believes that President-elect Trump should retract this announcement or the Senate should reject this nomination. The head of the Environmental Protection Agency should be making sure that our air is clean to breathe and our water is safe to drink, not working to make sure polluters make more money.”

“Despite the wealth of research worldwide documenting the connection between CO2 emissions from pollution and climate change, Pruitt has cast doubt about whether global warming is related to human activity. Anyone who doesn’t believe in scientific research is completely unqualified to lead the primary federal agency tasked with addressing this issue.”

How have some of Earthjustice's partner and client groups responded to Pruitt’s nomination?

Michael Brune, Executive Director, Sierra Club:

“Nothing less than our children’s health is at stake. Scott Pruitt, whose own bio describes him as ‘a leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda’ cannot be trusted to head the EPA, an agency charged with protecting all Americans from threats to their water, air, and health.”

Gene Karpinski, President, League of Conservation Voters:

“Scott Pruitt running the EPA is like the fox guarding the hen house. Time and again, he has fought to pad the profits of Big Polluters at the expense of public health.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY):

[Pruitt's] “reluctance to accept the facts or science on climate change couldn't make him any more out of touch with the American people—and with reality”

Peggy Shepard, Executive Director, NWE ACT:

“In the next four years, we expect policies protecting environmental justice communities and enforcement of those laws to be targeted, weakened, or altogether eliminated. From Standing Rock to Flint to Harlem, make no mistake that environmental racism is real. President-elect Trump’s appointment of Mr. Pruitt to the EPA and Senator Jeff Sessions to be the next Attorney General signal that communities of color and low-income people will be disproportionately threatened by roll backs in environmental protection.”

GreenLatinos:

“This nomination is a particular threat to Latino communities who disproportionately bear the burden of impaired air quality and water pollution, and reside in areas most impact by climate change induced extreme weather events. GreenLatinos urges the Senate to strongly oppose the nomination of Mr. Pruitt in the vital interest of the environment and public health mission of EPA and for the sake of all Americans and, frankly, the future of our planet.”

Ken Kimmell, President, Union of Concerned Scientists:

“Scott Pruitt is the wrong choice to run the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA plays an absolutely vital role in enforcing long-standing policies that protect the health and safety of Americans, based on the best available science. Pruitt has a clear record of hostility to the EPA’s mission, and he is a completely inappropriate choice to lead it.”

What’s been happening in the EPA Administrator selection process?

The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works handled the EPA Administrator nomination. The EPA Administrator is confirmed by a simple majority of the full Senate. (The vote cannot be filibustered due to a change in rules by Democrats in 2013 that Republicans are expected to adopt in January.) Republicans currently hold 51 seats.

The committee hearing on Pruitt's nomination was held on Jan. 18. Senators on the Environment & Public Works Committee questioned Pruitt on his record and his positions, giving the American public an opportunity to fully understand the impact that a Pruitt-led EPA will have on public health and the environment. (Watch key moments from the hearing.) On Feb. 2, Republican lawmakers took the extraordinary step of suspending committee rules, voting to advance Pruitt’s nomination. Democratic EPW committee members boycotted the Feb. 2 and Feb. 1 votes because of Pruitt’s failure to respond to document requests, his lack of substantive responses to questions raised during his hearing, and his refusal to clarify whether he will recuse himself from work on regulations and issues where he has a direct conflict of interest.

The vote by the full Senate on Pruitt's nomination was held on Feb. 17. He was confirmed along a mostly party-line vote of 52–46. (See how your senators voted.)

Did individuals have a voice in this process?

Yes. In the weeks since Scott Pruitt was announced as the Trump administration's pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency, concerned members of the public and hundreds of organizations across the country spoke out against Scott Pruitt's nomination, highlighting Pruitt's open record of hostility towards the essential purpose and functions of the EPA and urging their senators to vote against Pruitt's confirmation.

Updated February 17. Published December 12, 2016 Photo: Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma speaks at the 2016 Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland. (Gage Skidmore / CC BY-SA 2.0)